Anger After A Disaster

Just as scenes of September 11 and the overwhelming 2011 floods in Australia were publicized world-wide on television, so were the mud slides in Brazil and the life shattering earthquake of Haiti, to be viewed live by millions.

Anyone who has experienced a life-shattering experience will have discovered themselves deep in the 'valley of grief'. Each person would have dealt with it as individually as their circumstances and own personality. It has been said the toll of a natural disaster is not so much the power of the cause of the disaster, but the state of the people who are involved in it.

Haiti, being the poorest country in the western Hemisphere, has an almost non-existent police force along with few emergency trained personnel, plus building codes which were not enforced. More than 200,000 people were killed in the earthquake and 1 million people left homeless, with a population that was already in poor in health. Haiti has not yet recovered.

Victim’s anger quickly turned to violence, as looters fought each other over shrinking food supplies. Numerous survivors lost tolerance with the total chaos, as it became almost impossible to receive international aid, through things such as the lack of jet fuel, plus lack of space at the only useable airport.

Besides individuals, it's up to the world-community, to illustrate not only sympathy for the Haitians, but show anger for any life-destroying systems, or corruption that allows entire communities to be placed at risk. Numerous other areas of the world have been hit by a 7.0 on the Richter scale earthquake, with nothing akin to the devastation seen in Haiti.

Similar anger should be applied in Australia, where authorities should also be held responsible for the security of the general population, following the devastating 2011 floods.

Many developers, greedy for profit, in the reoccurring building booms of the 2000, saw homes built on flood plains. The real estate was low priced and the continued population increase in certain popular coastal areas saw councils bend the rules, as 100s of acres of flood plains were drained and developed.

New arrivals were not given the history of the land. Flood insurance was not part of the sales pitch of the greedy real estate agents, or banks keen to lend money.

This had caused the 2011 floods to have much larger and far-reaching consequences than the 1974 floods. Where there had been only commercial or industrial buildings, in 2011, there were large housing complexes.

Always quick to 'dodge their responsibility', insurance companies declined to pay out, just as many victims remain unpaid from 1974.

With soul-destroying mortgages still over their heads, 1000s have lost everything. Their anger should be the basis of a class action against councils, developers and any other body responsible for such irresponsible development. Insurance companies should be taken to task over the ambiguity in the wording of their contracts. Anger should thus find healthy outlets in the wake of a disaster.

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